Friday, July 22, 2016

BayKeeper Blog: Signs of a Cleaner Bay

By Tom Kutcher, Narragansett BayKeeper

Narragansett Bay is cleaner than it’s been in 150 years.
That’s according to a recent decade-long study by scientists from the
University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Graduate School of Oceanography and
partnering organizations.

To measure this reported cleanliness, the study focuses on
levels of nitrogen, which is released into the water from wastewater treatment
facilities, individual septic systems, storm drains and other mostly
human-caused sources. Nitrogen acts a fertilizer in marine environments, but
too much of it causes declines in Bay health from things like too much
phytoplankton (microscopic floating plants) shading underwater plants,
overabundant seaweeds smothering life on the bottom, and lack of oxygen in the
water as these overabundant plants decompose. These problems can then lead to
chain reaction-type effects that diminish habitat value, change the ways in
which plants and animals interact, cause declines or other shifts in important
species, make the water too acidic, and even cause some species to disappear
altogether from affected areas.

Some guys I don’t know with a nice keeper striped bass they caught by the Broken Bridge* during the middle of the day in mid-July of this year. Incredible!

*what we called it when I was a kid

The main finding of the URI study is that recent efforts to
reduce nitrogen inputs to Narragansett Bay have not only been successfully
carried out, but have had positive effects on water clarity and quality.

But hey, let’s not just take a bunch of scientists’ word for
it. After all, what does a group of really smart people with four to eight
years of graduate-level education plus professional experience, who have
dedicated their entire lives to revealing truths of the natural world through
rigorous and unbiased scientific study of our Bay got that the rest of us don’t
got (yup that’s a joke—these scientists are awesome)?Let me really
convince you with some purely anecdotal signals of improving Bay health from
some other qualified sources.

1) Recreational fishermen
have reported that striped bass fishing in Narragansett Bay has been off the
hook! And I’m not just referring to the waters off bucolic Jamestown and other
pastoral lower-Bay postcard-inspiring spots. I’m talking about the grungy old
Providence, Seekonk, and Warren rivers, and other unassuming, formerly left-for-dead
open sewers of the past. In particular, the Providence River has been on fire (with
fish) in the springtime these past several years. This year, the bass came up
early and left late (see below photo I took of guys catching a nice fish in
JULY this year). In fact, many fishermen agree that fishing in the upper
reaches of the Bay was better than it was in any other section of the Bay or the
South Shore all spring and early summer this year.

2) Commercial
fishermen and shell fishermen who have spent most days of most years of their
lives on the Bay have been reporting unusually clear water. The fishermen I’ve spoken
with show great enthusiasm, figuring that clear water can lead to the recovery
of sea grasses and the various species they support, and can indicate better oxygen
and pH conditions in the water column for better survival of sea life. I’ve
heard that some fishermen are worried that such an increase in clarity might
mean something is wrong. However, most information I’ve seen is indicating that
something is actually going very right, and that thing is increasingly cleaner
water.

3) Beach
closures are down significantly since the construction of a huge tunnel under
the city of Providence that acts as a storage tank for sewage and city runoff
after rainstorms. The decline in closures is directly related to a reduction of
bacteria found at local beaches, which can be attributed to the big tunnel and
other recent improvements in sewage and stormwater infrastructure. Less
bacterial pollution means more people can swim and enjoy all this clear water. In
fact, Save The Bay has been working with the Department of Health and the City
of East Providence to prepare Sabin Point Park to be the first state-certified
swimming beach north of Conimicut Point in generations.

4) Take a fresh look at our urban rivers
sometime. You’ll see flotillas of kayakers, sailing dinghies and rowing sculls.
You’ll see people picnicking on the shores of Bold Point and India Point Parks.
Fishermen are casting from the shores, folks are eating on the decks of
waterfront restaurants and thousands of people are flocking to summertime
events at Waterplace Park. All these people must be noticing something
appealing about our urban waterways that wasn’t apparent 50 years ago.

5) Finally (and perhaps
most anecdotally) are the humpback whale, the belugas, the basking shark, the
dolphins, and the occasional manatee, not to mention perhaps more reliable
signals like the numerous seals, wading birds, oystercatchers, sea ducks,
osprey, hawks, and even a few bald eagles we’ve been seeing in and along our
waterways. No one really knows exactly what to make of some of this (the whales
for example), but these freak or rare or formerly unusual occurrences seem to
be happening more and more often in the upper parts of the Bay these days. I’m
going to go with my hopeful Rhode Islander gut and call it all progress.

I’ll admit that Narragansett Bay has a way to go before it
can be called pristine. But in spite of considerable wear and tear on our
beautiful Bay from hundreds of years of development and abuse, it sure seems
like we’ve recently made some considerable, tangible progress toward the
completely swimmable, fishable, and healthy Bay that we have been working so
hard to bring back.